Book Reviews August 2008

ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century Susan Greenfield Sceptre, 2008 ISBN: 9780340936009 How we percieve personal identity says a lot about the sort of society we live in. Current Western society puts a lot of store on personal fulfillment and freedom, whilst in other societies people might seem to be more like cogs in a machine. In ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century Susan Greenfield looks at how our sense of identity relates to the workings of our brains, and at what this can tell us about where our society might be going. Continued..

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How to Build Your Own Spaceship Piers Bizony Portobello Books, 2008 ISBN: 9781846271250 It's over 50 years since rockets first went into space, but the national space programs haven't brought the future in space which many people hoped for. But there is an alternative. In How to Build Your Own Spaceship:The Science of Personal Space Travel Piers Bizony looks at new options for space travel and at how you can play a part in making them happen. Continued..

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The End of the Dinosaurs Charles Frankel Cambridge University Press, 1999 ISBN: 0521474477 It is now the consensus that 65 million years ago there was a major impact which caused a major extinction. In The End of the Dinosaurs:Chicxulub Crater and Mass Extinctions Charles Frankel describes how this idea came to be a駀ted. Continued..

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Beyond AI J Storrs Hall Prometheus Books, 2007 ISBN: 9781591025115 The idea of a robot turning on it's creator is popular in fiction, but how likely is this scenario in reality? In Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine J Storrs Hall looks at where Artificial Intelligence is going, and at what we should do to ensure that it is beneficial to humanity. Continued..

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